The Depths of the Hollow (Mercy Falls Mythos Book 2)

by Nathaniel Reed

  

  “Come in,” Detective Faraday motioned. Boy, this one was a piece of work, he thought. This fat chick was waddling in to his office, her dreadlock weave flipping from side to side, looking pissed off before he even began questioning. This was going to be fun.

  “Have a seat...” he started, grasping for her name.

  “Shaneka,” she said angrily.

  Faraday nodded. “I take it your boyfriend...” He consulted his notes, “Dominic is outside in the waiting room?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Good, I’ll speak to him next.”

  “What’s this about?” Shaneka demanded.

  “Well,” the detective replied calmly, “What this is about is two dead people. What you’re in here for is to corroborate some things you said last night. You said you found the victim in the janitor’s closet?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you’re a cashier. What were you doing in the janitor’s closet?”

  “If you really need to know, I was looking for toilet paper. The ladies restroom was out, and I had to take a shit.”

  “Charming. Guess that went out the window. Well, not literally. Describe the condition he was in.”

  “I already have, and you saw it for yourself.”

  “Humor me Shaquonda.”

  “Shaneka!”

  “Right. Please go through it one more time.”

  She did. “Satisfied?”

  “For now. What did you do directly after seeing the body?”

  “I ran screaming. What do you think?”

  “I’m not sure. That’s why I asked. You didn’t call

  911?”

  “No, I went to find the manager. He called.”

  “Your store manager, Chuck Cohen?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And the other body? Marvin?”

  “Amelia found him.”

  “Very well Shanaynay. That will be all.”

  “It’s Shaneka asshole! You called me in for this bullshit?! Really?!”

  “I’m calling everyone in concerning these murders, or this... bullshit, as you so eloquently put it. Please call your boyfriend in Miss Rawley.”

  “Motherfucker,” she grumbled, exiting his office.

  “Catch you later Shaqueefa,” David Faraday called after her.

  

  After her interrogation with Faraday Amelia Rivers felt like her boyfriend’s death was even less real somehow. It was as if she was trapped in a movie she couldn’t get out of, and all she could do was watch events pass her by, unable to affect anything. Still living with her roommate Kelly, who her boyfriend may or may not have cheated with, certainly didn’t make things any easier. Amelia was grateful she wasn’t home tonight. And she was almost grateful that they would be re-opening the Supra-Mart tomorrow. Chuck had asked her if she needed a few more days off; it would be okay; but she decided she’d rather work. She didn’t know how she’d react once she was there, but she had to try something to get her mind off things. She hoped Ben would be there to comfort her and help her get through the day, but being a victim himself she didn’t think it was right to wish for that. She believed he would still be taking time off, and wouldn’t be there anyway.

  As Amelia pondered the day ahead, Ben consulted

  his watch, considering his grumbling belly. It was nearly ten p.m., the time he’d normally be heading in to work. The sun had set about eight, and he’d been wandering since then. He’d eaten right before leaving, so there was no reason for his hunger. His body was revved and burning fuel at an abnormal rate, even taking into account his sturdy physique. The thing he craved the most was meat. A nice, thick, juicy steak would hit the spot about now. Hell, he could probably down three or four of them.

  He didn’t know when the change began, but he felt it almost instantly. He found himself looking up at the moon again. It was singing its silent song to him, and he felt a horrible cramping in his gut, and then his limbs felt as if they were on fire.

  “Dear God, no!!”

  Every nerve ending sang; his heart pumped faster. Ben felt the blood rushing through his veins and arteries. The veins in his forehead popped as his body went into spasms. He made a single great grunt of pain, teeth clenching, as he tore off his encumbering clothes. Hair burst from his skin where none existed before, sprouting like vines. His forehead exploded with stars, pushing out from its limitations, protruding for a moment as a Neanderthal’s. Then the rest of his face followed, pushing out, and shifting, its entire structure reshaping itself. His ears grew long and pointed, tufted and dog-like. His limbs extended, bones stretching and breaking, pushing through and puncturing expanding skin under furry growth, and re-forming them, producing excruciating pain. He’d never felt pain more exquisite. His watch broke off, the links separating. The Saint Christopher’s medal around his neck began to burn, smoke rising from his sizzling skin. He tore it off angrily, flinging it to the ground. His fingers lengthened, the nails on them growing into claws. His jaw line cracked, elongating and bursting forth with rows of sharp teeth, canines and incisors becoming fangs. His hair grew long and dark, and he became more broad shouldered, his bulk and weight increasing in minutes, his height reaching more than seven feet. Benjamin became the creature he feared he would, again- a monster that was neither man nor wolf but an unnatural mixture of both. His garments and humanity cast aside, he bounded through the woods in search of prey.

  

  “What are you talking about? All he did was ask me questions,” Dominic said.

  “That cracker is racist, I’m telling you,” Shaneka replied.

  “Whatever girl, maybe it’s just your... presentation.”

  “My pre... say what? What the fuck is you talking about?”

  “Exactly. I rest my case.”

  “What the, you mother better...” she started smacking his body, rattling off a string of obscenities he wasn’t entirely sure he got, which meant retreat mode. Shaneka outweighed Dominic by about a hundred and fifty pounds, and he wasn’t hitting no woman, no matter how belligerent she was.

  “Okay, okay, you win,” Dominic said, “Damn!” She stopped. “Guy’s a straight up racist.” He crossed his fingers behind his back.

  “Well okay then,” Shaneka said.

  “Let’s go get some dinner,” Dominic suggested.

  “Okay,” she smiled.

  Sometimes all you had to do was agree. This was one of those times, praise the Lord.

  They ate at the Starlite Diner. After their meal they headed home. Dominic and Shaneka both lived in poor town, on the west side facing the woods, separated only by a wooden fence and overgrown bushes. They lived on Clarita Street, a few houses down from the backside of the old Rock Spot, a Rock and Roll club that was boarded up a year ago, and now bore a freshly painted sign proclaiming: Future Home of the Crystal Palace. There weren’t going to be any palaces here anytime soon, and certainly no crystal in their future, Dominic thought often.

  Their home, little more than a run down, dingy shack, with a thin asphalt shingle roof, and cheap wooden slats painted with the same blue paint over and over, had the look of a patient with gangrene. Instead of broken sores and scabs, it was peeling paint, and the bone was the rotting wood underneath. In early ’86, when he lived here with his mother and older brother, a group of ragtag kids looking for a missing little girl had crouched beneath the window of this house on their way to the woods, as Dominic, then only six, sat eating a bowl of soup. His mother heard something and opened the window, but he hadn’t heard anything. He wouldn’t hear anything this time either, both because Shaneka was talking, and because she was generally too loud to hear anything else.

  “Marvin was my friend. I can’t believe anyone would think I killed him,” she said.

  “I know,” Dominic replied. “I didn’t know him that well, but he seemed all right.”

  “Yeah, he was a good guy; a little crazy with the women but he was straight. Did you hear that?”
r />   “Nah-uh.”

  Something exploded through their front door.

  “What the...?” Dominic did not understand what he was seeing. It was huge and furry, too big to be a man, but still shaped like one.

  “Aww Christ! What the holy hell?!” Shaneka Rawley screamed.

  It came at them.

  

  “So what you’re saying is... the hairs came from some sort of dog?” Faraday asked.

  The lab tech looked up from his microscope. “Not exactly. I’m saying it’s possibly lupine, a dog/wolf hybrid, or canine, definitely something in the dog family- a wolf or a coyote maybe.”

  “You’re not giving me a lot to go on.”

  David Faraday wanted results, and he wanted them quick. That was why he came to the doctor himself with the samples, and came to see him in his off hours.

  “This, however,” the technician said, “Is the most interesting thing I found. Come over here, take a look.”

  The detective walked over and peered into the microscope.

  “Watch carefully.”

  Faraday did, but couldn’t make much sense of what he was seeing. It looked like something you saw in sci-fi movies, a cluster of cells maybe.

  “Stay still,” the tech advised, and he brought a scalpel over to the plate, slicing one of the hairs in half.

  Faraday watched as some of the cells seemed to split, then just as quickly came together again.

  “Whoa!” Faraday said, backing away from the eyepiece. “Did it just...?”

  “Regenerate? Yes. At an alarming rate. Almost instantaneously I’d say.”

  “How did it do that?”

  “I don’t know. I did find several strands of DNA, mixed in with the animal that could only be attributed to humans.”

  “So what are you saying Doc? Is this thing a dog or human?”

  He shook his head. “Honestly, I just don’t know.

  I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  

  The creature roared and Shaneka screamed in reply. She turned to run, but it backhanded her with its massive paw, sending her across the room and into a floor lamp in the corner, shattering it against the wall.

  “Hey!” Dominic said. The wolf-thing turned, its black eyes squinting, growling low in its throat. Dominic ran.

  

  He was still staring at the lab tech when his walkie crackled to life, squealing and then popping and hissing before he got the report.

  “We have reports of a large wild animal in the vicinity of Clarita Street. Possibly a bear or a coyote.” The operator sounded confused by her report. “Units please respond.”

  “FUCK!” Faraday shouted. He yanked the radio from his holster and pushed the button. “I’m on my way.” The man in the white lab coat would have to wait. “We’ll have to pick up on this later,” he told him.

  The man nodded, “Best of luck detective.”

  

  While Dominic bolted out the back door to his yard, the detective barreled down Amarillo St., twisting around the first turn after the defunct Rock Spot. He heard a female scream, and swerved in that direction to see Dominic Finch running out of a blue house, heading onto Sao Paulo toward the woods.

  For a moment he was a deer caught in the headlights of the police car. He made the siren sound once and flashed on his lights, screeching to a halt.

  The nineteen year old boy paused, as the detective got out of the car, and ran to him, un-holstering his gun.

  “Where is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Dominic shook. “I think it’s still in the house. I think it got my girl. I ran, goddamn it! I ran.”

  “It’s all right son. Calm down. Stay here. I’m going in. Hide. If I’m not out in five minutes, you get the fuck out of here, you understand Dominic?”

  The kid nodded. “What the fuck is that thing? It looks like a...”

  “Werewolf?” Faraday suggested.

  Dominic nodded, opening his eyes real wide.

  Faraday went in.

  “Sweet baby Jesus,” he said.

  The thing was feasting on her, its muzzle buried in her gut, feasting on her entrails. It looked up at the detective and growled menacingly, its snout and teeth sodden with blood. It launched itself at Faraday. He brought up the gun and fired three times. The bullets struck it, sending it reeling back. The creature whimpered, retreating. It scurried the other way, racing toward the closest exit, a double wide picture window behind the couch. It crashed through in a rain of glass and wooden supports, breaking off into a sprint, and disappearing into the woods.

  “Goddamn it!” Faraday swore. He began to give chase, but he realized quickly it was no use. The creature was gone.

  

  Benjamin Caldwell woke up in Jeremiah’s Woods, naked and alone. He had three gunshot wounds- one on his right side next to his ribs, one in his chest, to the right of his heart, and one in the left shoulder. He felt as if it must have happened some time ago but he wasn’t bleeding out. In fact, the blood seemed to have already stopped flowing, but he could feel the bullets inside him. The sun was just coming up. He got up from the grass between the copse of trees he’d found shelter in. It took him another hour before he found his clothes. His watch was busted, un-wearable. There was a thin burnt line around his neck where the Saint Christopher’s medal had been. He found that too with links in the chain broken. He put on his underwear and jeans and pocketed both pieces of jewelry, and then put on his shirt. He found his knife too, unused. He tried to be careful not to leave any evidence behind, although he didn’t think he could hide what he was much longer, from himself or others. Ben would have to turn himself in, get locked up, and make sure he didn’t kill anyone else. He didn’t know what he did, but someone had run into him; someone with a gun.

  

  It didn’t take much to convince David Faraday. All Ben had to say was, “I did it. I’m behind the murders. Lock me up.” Pending an investigation, and a trial, that was all he could do. He put Benjamin Caldwell in one of the holding cells, which currently held no other inmates.

  “I need someone to remove the bullets from me, before nightfall,” Ben said.

  Faraday already knew. They didn’t have to say it.

  “All right, I’ll call in a surgeon. The boys here will let him in. I’m on patrol duty. You and I are going to have to talk about this when I get back.”

  “Understood,” Ben said.

  He tested the bars for strength. They were thick solid iron. The detective had two men sitting at the post, which he left to guard the prisoner, while he went out. They didn’t know precisely what was going on, but eyed Ben suspiciously.

  Good, Ben was glad that they were wary. That

  would make them more likely to shoot him, and stop him if need be. He expected the cell would be enough to keep him from causing any more harm. This would be the last night of the full moon, and he could weigh his options once it was over.

  

  Sneaking out of her bedroom and tip toeing across the living room where Kelly slept on the couch, the TV still on, Amelia made her way quietly to the front door, as she headed out to work.

  Kelly shifted and woke. “Oh, Amelia,” she said groggily, “You’re going into work?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh. Well, goodnight.”

  Amelia nodded.

  Kelly paused, considering. “I’m sorry about Dane,” her roommate added.

  “Yeah,” Amelia responded- her head down, continuing out the door without looking back.

  She performed her work, pushing thoughts of anything else away.

  “Glad to have you back,” Chuck told her.

  She wasn’t sure how glad she was to be back, yet, but at least she was keeping busy, and she needed the paycheck now that two of her roommates were gone.

  She wished she hadn’t thought that. She buried her emotions, and concentrated on scanning, turning up the volume on her headphones. She didn’t even have Ben to talk to. H
e seemed like the only person who would understand. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she did. Ben, and his fishy smell. Amelia Rivers smiled to herself. She hoped he was okay.

  One more year, she told herself. One more year and

  I’ll move on to something better. What that something was she did not know yet, but she hoped it had something to do with sewing. The issue was she didn’t have faith in her own skills even though her friends were all impressed by her work, and she’d only ever made clothes, particularly her corsets, to fit her; not for other people.

  The manager walked into the backroom. She removed her headphones. “Amelia, we’re going to have a little get together in the break room, for our associates, to honor the victims; if you’d like to come. You’re not obligated, of course.”

  Amelia nodded. “I’ll come,” she said.

  “Good.”

  “Just don’t expect me to speak.”

  

  They retrieved the bullets from Ben’s body and stitched him up. The operating doctor was amazed at how quickly he was healing. He expected the stitches would dissolve on their own within a day.

  Later on that night Benjamin started getting antsy.

  “What the hell’s wrong with him?” one of the cops said.

  “I don’t know,” the other replied.

  “I think I’m about to change,” Ben said. “You should have your guns out, just in case. I don’t know if this cage can hold me.”

  “What the hell are you yapping about?” the first officer said.

  Ben shook his head. He knew they weren’t going to listen. He paced back and forth in his cell, his fidgeting turning into trembling. He began going through spasms. It was too late. The moon was calling to him again, crooning its transformation song.

  “What’s he doing?” the second officer asked.

  “It’s like he’s having a seizure or something,” the

  other said.

  Ben’s eyes rolled in his head, trying to fight it off. He fell to his knees screaming.